Monday, December 13, 2004

RECENT HEADLINES ARE BEGINNING TO MAKE ME NERVOUS

I saw one the other day about a burger joint employee arrested for "assault" for throwing a burger at a customer (or maybe it was the other way around), and today I read about some dude in Houston who was arrested for threatening to kill a waitperson for serving him a cold cheesesteak sandwich. Not to mention the guy at that basketball game who has been charged with assault for throwing a cup at the player,who in response,kicked some other fans ass. He was charged as well. Then theres the group that's suing WalMart for selling an evanescence CD sans warning sticker that has - gasp - the word fuck in one of it's songs...oh my god! She said "fuck"!!! smite her! and sue walmart while yer at it. The attorney promises to take it to the highest court in the land (or something like that) if need be to make walmart,the band, and the record label pay mightily for saying the word "fuck" and not warning us ahead of time. This kind of shit is piling up faster than you can say Jerry Falwell these days. I mean there was always the occasional offensive Tshirt wearing middle school student in the news, but I'm afraid things are getting out of hand.I also read last week that something like 98% of the complaints received by the FCC in 2003 came from the same fringe "family organization" which is modeled after Colorado's poke us in the fanny I mean...focus on the family. Are social trends in this country really being steered by these fringe groups? It would scarily, appear to be the case (with the FCC anyway).People are being arrested and charged for making threats? I mean, come on, there is a big difference between my waving a cold philly cheesesteak and saying I'm going to kill you as opposed to my waving a vial of smallpox around and saying I'm going to kill you. I could hit someone with a cold philly all day and the worse that would happen is I would get tired, you would get cheesesteak spooge on you and get annoyed...you might even hit me with a bag of chips, or even worse...throw a cup at me.I, however, could kill the fuck out of you,myself, and a shitload of other people with a vial of smallpox, if I had one. Which,by the way, I don't. But, if you give me a few minutes, I can whip up a burger or a cheesesteak to flog you with.Meanwhile, television stations continue to broadcast sex,violence and intolerance shrouded in the guise of entertainment, basically giving that guy in houston tacit permission to threaten to kill someone with a sandwich because he saw Cartman do it on some episode of Southpark...or maybe it was Survivor...The real Gilligan's Island? No! Wait! It was that episode of Six Feet Under! Or maybe it was the latest Tool CD that gave him subliminal messages about cheesesteak violence, Yes! That's it! Or maybe it was that website featuring cheesesteak insertions that pushed him over the edge! Let's get them all sweet jesus!Or, maybe, he was just an asshole who couldn't control his temper and said what millions of us have said when we have had a momentary distortion of "appropriate anger display" - I'm gonna fucking kill you....with this cheesesteak...this cold cheesesteak. And he was arrested for that. Please. Come. On.Is puritan/victorian ideology making a comeback? Or are we barrelling toward thoughtcrime, with a brief stop over in speakcrime?Do you hear that swirling sound? I do.